Safeguarding children’s images and identities online in the age of AI.

The new school year often feels like a fresh start. For many of us, summer was a time for making memories, holidays, days out, or simply enjoying time with family and friends. It’s natural to want to share those experiences on social media, whether through photos, videos, or short updates. It is nice to see the interactions and comments and keep the experience alive for longer.

But alongside the joy of sharing, there’s a growing reality we need to acknowledge. Those who know me or have followed my other blogs will know I am a passionate technologist with a love for pushing boundaries. But there comes a time that the power of technology needs to be acknowledged as having possible dark sides.

Beyond traditional photo editing, we now live in an era where AI can manipulate images, video, and even audio with surprising ease. This isn’t reserved for technology experts or specialist labs (and no I will not be providing how-to tutorials but if there is interest I will run closed sessions to known groups on how easy it is to exploit online data) the tools are available to anyone with basic digital skills. What once took hours of editing knowledge can now be achieved with a few clicks.

Rather than me writing a large piece on this topic they say a picture paints a thousand words. A video, perhaps many more. But in the context of privacy, safeguarding, and security, what matters most is not just what you share today, but how those digital traces might be used in the future by others, or even against you. This isn’t about fear, but about awareness. Knowledge is power and the more you know about protecting your digital footprint the safer you will be online.

Here is a short, poignant video that illustrates this message: [Insert Your Link]

Why This Matters for Families and Schools

As children head back into school routines, their online presence grows too from messaging apps and online classrooms to social networks. I hear you say oh social media has age limits, these pupils and kids will not be on there publishing content. Think again. Safeguarding in this digital environment is not just about cyberbullying or inappropriate content; it’s about protecting the integrity of digital identities in a world where AI can blur the lines between what’s real and what’s fake.

According to the UK Safer Internet Centre, over a third of young people have seen misleading or fake content online, and many struggle to tell the difference [Safer Internet Centre]. The challenge is only increasing with AI-generated content.

Practical Steps to Stay Safe

Here are some sensible, everyday measures you can take:

1. Review Your Privacy Settings

  • On platforms like Facebook, check who can see your posts and photos. The Facebook Privacy Check-up tool is a quick way to review settings.
  • Make sure “Friends only” (not “Public”) is your default sharing option.

2. Think Before You Share

  • Avoid posting personal details such as school uniforms, home addresses, or holiday locations in real time.
  • Teach children to pause before they post. Once an image is online, control is limited.

3. Check What’s Already Out There

  • Google your own name (and your children’s) to see what information and images are publicly accessible.
  • Use tools like Google Images’ “Search by Image” to check where pictures might be appearing online.

4. Protect Your Accounts

  • Use strong, unique passwords for each account, ideally stored in a password manager.
  • Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) where available to add an extra layer of security.
  • Facebook, Instagram, and most other platforms now support this option [National Cyber Security Centre guidance].

5. Talk About AI and Online Manipulation

  • Explain to children that not everything they see online is genuine.
  • Share age-appropriate examples of AI-generated images or videos so they can recognise the signs of manipulated content.
  • Encourage them to ask a trusted adult if they are unsure about something they see online.

6. Report Harmful or Misleading Content

  • Most platforms allow you to report posts, images, or videos that you believe are harmful, misleading, or fake.
  • In the UK, platforms are now obliged to act under new online safety laws [Ofcom – Online Safety].
  • If you see something concerning, don’t just scroll past — use the report function (often shown as a warning triangle or three dots menu).
  • Remember, this is a societal issue. By reporting, you’re helping keep the online space safer for everyone.

Thoughts

Safeguarding in the digital age is not about avoiding technology it’s about using it wisely and staying vigilant. Just as we teach children to cross the road safely, we also need to teach them how to navigate the digital world with caution and confidence.

This term, alongside schoolbooks and uniforms, make sure that digital awareness is part of your toolkit. By checking privacy settings, reviewing what is online, and having open conversations about AI and content manipulation, we can help ensure that the amazing memories we create and share remain safe and positive.

Looking Ahead to the wider question of using images

On the surface, sharing images of school life seems harmless and even positive as it celebrates achievements, keeps parents informed, and shows the world what a vibrant community looks like. But in the digital age, we have to be more cautious about what those images might reveal and how they might be misused.

Once an image is online, it can be copied, harvested, and even manipulated with AI tools as I talked about above. What begins as a cheerful class photo could, in the wrong hands, be altered to create misleading or harmful content. Scammers (or pupils/anyone with malintent) may use these images to set up fake social media profiles, impersonate a child or a school, or even combine them with other information to trick parents into sharing personal data or money.

It is also worth remembering that images often carry metadata. Metadata is background information about when and where the photo was taken, and sometimes even the GPS location. Unless this information is removed before uploading, it can inadvertently reveal far more than intended.

Some schools ask whether images should be watermarked. While a watermark can discourage casual copying, it is not a foolproof defence. Determined users can crop or edit around them. Similarly, there are digital techniques that can help obscure or blur sensitive details such as faces, but these need to be balanced against whether the image still serves its purpose of celebration and communication.

Once an image is online, it can be copied, harvested and even manipulated with AI tools.

The safest approach is a combination of good practice and digital caution:

  • Use consent forms and explain clearly how images will be used.
  • Avoid publishing identifying details such as full names alongside pictures.
  • Strip out metadata before uploading images.
  • Consider whether the benefit of publishing a particular image outweighs the potential risks.

These questions don’t have simple answers, but they matter. What else can be done and what technologies are emerging.

Digital Ways to Protect Images

While no method is perfect, there are several strategies that can make it much harder for images of children to be misused once they are published online.

1. Remove Hidden Metadata

Most digital photos contain EXIF metadata, technical details automatically embedded by the camera or phone. This can include the make and model of the device, the date and time, and in many cases, the exact GPS location where the photo was taken.

  • Before uploading, schools should remove this metadata. Free tools such as ExifCleaner or built-in options in Windows and macOS make this straightforward.
  • By stripping metadata, you avoid giving away unintended details, such as a child’s home address or the exact layout of the school.

2. Watermarking

Adding a subtle watermark (for example, the school logo) can discourage images being copied and re-used elsewhere. While watermarks can be cropped out, their presence signals ownership and can make it harder for scammers to pass images off as their own. This is a bit old school now and not something we do at iTCHYROBOT. Why, because the tools and technologies we work with make it easy to remove a visible watermark. There are more subtle emerging solutions to this problem.

3. Cropping and Blurring

Sometimes the safest approach is to share the event without the faces. Cropping to show the wider activity, or blurring faces of children who have not given consent, allows schools to celebrate achievements while minimising risks. This is more a tip for your budding on staff photographers. Shots from behind people or distance shots that make zooming in to get a high resolution image of an individuals face impossible.

4. Visual Alteration for Privacy

Newer techniques allow small changes to images. For example, slightly altering eye colour, facial geometry, or other details in ways that the human eye won’t notice unless you know the change has been made. These subtle changes do not affect the image but would clear be spotted as a fake if used or AI manipulated.

  • Tools such as Fawkes (University of Chicago) and Glaze were designed to disrupt facial recognition algorithms while keeping images human-readable.
  • These approaches are still emerging, but they are part of a growing field sometimes called “digital cloaking”.

5. Face Obfuscation and Masking

For schools wanting a stronger guarantee, there are tools that can digitally mask or anonymise faces. These do not just blur they replace facial details with AI-generated lookalikes that are not tied to a real identity. This preserves the feel of a school photo without exposing a child’s actual face. This is an emerging area and personally I would say not production ready as yet. The results of AI produced face and hands are somewhat odd at times!

6. Controlled Access

Finally, the simplest yet often overlooked safeguard is where images are published. Instead of making all photos public on the school website, schools can place galleries in password-protected parent portals or share via platforms with access controls. Unfortunately this is the world we are now living in and as with social media we need to me mindful of publishing on the school website just because we can and consider the wider safety ramifications.

The Key Message

Digital protection is possible, but it works best when combined with clear consent, limited personal detail, and regular reviews of what is online. The technology is advancing quickly both the tools that protect us and the tools that can be used to manipulate images. At iTCHYROBOT we are constantly reviewing and finding ways to protect images published on our platforms and whilst some are handled manually as we build your school website others happen automatically behind the scenes.